Two Poems by Steve Klepetar

The Winter Shadow

on the wall
has no eyes but it sees
every grain of grit
pushed and anguished
by snow

it has hands like dark
webs shooting out
from thin wrists
it has legs like stilts
stalking a cold land

Tonight the shadow will shrink
to a frozen
spot

which cold night
will swallow
the shadow is
not lost
but wandering far
in the moon's restless dream



Staff Meeting

The girl to my right is wearing three shirts,
gray over black over white.  Her nails are clear;
her friend's are painted black.  Each has driven

a thin spike through the flesh of her ear.
This room is cold.  Some people are eating
banana cake; white icing clings to yellow plates.

Wall clock lurches forward, one minute at a time.
Somewhere, green snakes wind their twisting way
beneath the blasts, deep through undulating earth.



Steve Klepetar's work has received several nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net.  Recent collections include Speaking to the Field Mice (Sweatshoppe Publications) and My Son Writes a Report on the Warsaw Ghetto (Flutter Press).  His e-chapbook, Return of the Bride of Frankenstein, is forthcoming from Kind of a Hurricane Press.